WTF has happened to my Country

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Tom-D

Tom-D

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Tom-D
Dallas Tx tonight ?

It's crazy.
 
Politicians, media, and a bunch of thugs got together to form a "movement" based on a complete lie which now travels the country demonstrating thuggish behavior in a supposed effort to oppose thuggish behavior. Somewhere in there a bunch of ill-informed, well-meaning people got sucked into it for a cheap feel-good thrill in the name of social justice, with facts of no consequence to the mission.


JKG
 
I have a lot of strong opinions of a political nature on this... which I probably shouldn't express on this board.

I'll just leave it with the main problem being that everyone is yelling at each other and trying to force what they want on everyone else. What we need to be doing is actually talking to each other, understanding that most people hold the views they hold for good reason, and trying to come up with solutions that everyone can live with even if it's not exactly what they want.
 
That sucks. That really really sucks. Condolences to the Dallas PD and their families. I have nothing but respect for all first responders and the hard thankless job they have.
 
I hate the way CNN and others just keep repeating video of the gunfire, over and over again.
 
Government is growing too big

People don't make enough

Police are getting a us vs them thing nowadays, plus all the guys straight out of the Mideast getting into the job.


People making less than ideal money feel trapped, vote for bigger government to help, but it only makes them feel more trapped.


Media sells fear, fear to civilians, fear to cops, both side buy it in bulk



Boiling point reached.



I fear we will see more and more of this type of thing, going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and the better ain't going to be easy, nor will it come from this government.
 
What the heck!?!?!

Man, I was busy all day, working night shift tonight, and didn't even know this was going on until I saw this thread. This is getting freakin' insane!
 
There's a video of an officer being shot, I am no expert but the gunman wasn't your run of the mill gangster with a gun. He looked fully trained.

Really interested to find out the real motive behind this attack.
 
There's so many people on facebook condoning the actions of these shooters. I can't live here any more. I'm going to move to the Yukon and delete all technology.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
There's so many people on facebook condoning the actions of these shooters. I can't live here any more. I'm going to move to the Yukon and delete all technology.
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Not sure how anyone can condone those actions. Taking life is senseless.
 
James331 said:
Government is growing too big

People don't make enough

Police are getting a us vs them thing nowadays, plus all the guys straight out of the Mideast getting into the job.


People making less than ideal money feel trapped, vote for bigger government to help, but it only makes them feel more trapped.


Media sells fear, fear to civilians, fear to cops, both side buy it in bulk



Boiling point reached.



I fear we will see more and more of this type of thing, going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and the better ain't going to be easy, nor will it come from this government.
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Unfortunately, I have to agree. Needless to say, I condemn the attacks; but I also believe that it's inevitable that widespread anger and frustration will eventually boil over into violence. I've been saying that for years, including in our own now-defunct Spin Zone. There are a lot of frustrated people out there, of all races, who have little hope and even less to lose: and there's only so much **** they're going to tolerate before they take to the streets.

Rich
 
Prayers for all the victims and families. My thoughts are with all of you D/FW area folks, my son just moved to the area Tuesday. I fear your town could be ground zero for the first battle of the coming war. God help us all.
 
The only relation these shootings in Dallas have to to peaceful assembly of citizens is that they occurred at the same place, and same time.

No one legitimately involved in the protest shot anyone, or at anyone. The killers used the protest as an opportunity to conduct a coordinated attack on peace officers.
 
It's like the 60s again, very sad. Condolences to those officer's families and their colleagues.
 
This is someone's twisted interpretation of "Watering the tree of liberty with blood". Stupid, reckless speech leads to stupid, reckless action. How are we surprised it has come to this.
 
mscard88 said:
It's like the 60s again, very sad. Condolences to those officer's families and their colleagues.
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Not that I grew up in the 60's, but I was just sitting here with my dad talking about this and he said pretty much the same thing. From the Kennedys to MLK, there seemed to be violence every other day.
 
A large-scale civil war of sorts is coming in the USA. Maybe not until a few generations from now, but it's coming. The differences between factions are becoming irreconcilable.
 
Today is the first day I woke up and legitimately wondered if I made a mistake having children. It just seems cruel to bring anyone into this world sometimes. I know that that there's just as much good out there as their is evil - we see and experience some of that good every time we climb into our planes, but it seems like evil is dominating.

Meanwhile, our choices are between Clinton and Trump to lead us out of this mess, and I see neither of them doing anything beyond further dividing us and exacerbating the situation. Our country is collapsing.

April 12, 1861, first shots of the Civil War.
July 7, 2016, first shots of the second Civil War?
 
Gun violence in America. Who would have thought of that?

Condolences to the families of the fallen.
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
Today is the first day I woke up and legitimately wondered if I made a mistake having children. It just seems cruel to bring anyone into this world sometimes. I know that that there's just as much good out there as their is evil - we see and experience some of that good every time we climb into our planes, but it seems like evil is dominating.

Meanwhile, our choices are between Clinton and Trump to lead us out of this mess, and I see neither of them doing anything beyond further dividing us and exacerbating the situation. Our country is collapsing.

April 12, 1861, first shots of the Civil War.
July 7, 2016, first shots of the second Civil War?
Click to expand...
If you can't see a difference between Clinton and Trump, you misunderstand the nature of the line that divides.
 
Terrorist attack, plain and simple. Someone who cannot, apparently, stand for the right of peaceable assembly.

The very essence of terrorism, sowing distrust and fomenting hatred.
 
Cooter143 said:
If you can't see a difference between Clinton and Trump, you misunderstand the nature of the line that divides.
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Where in my post did I say I did not see a difference between them? I see a vast difference between them. Huge. But I also see no good coming from us electing either. I desperately hope I am wrong. We need someone to unite us, not continue turning us against each other.
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
Where in my post did I say I did not see a difference between them? I see a vast difference between them. Huge. But I also see no good coming from us electing either. I desperately hope I am wrong. We need someone to unite us, not continue turning us against each other.
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Uniting is not the goal, acknowledgeing and pursuing right principles is. You equivocate between the two because your goal of unity is directionless.

EDIT: I hit post in haste, so I want to clarify so as not to sound confrontational. If unity is the goal, and both sides stand on different principles then I can see the throw the hands up in the air attitude. But, if the principles are taken into account and related to the current problems, then the distinctions grow more apparent (as long as the nature of the problem is understood). There are two distinct avenues being presented by the two candidates, regardless of what you think of their position.
 
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SmashTime said:
Not sure how anyone can condone those actions. Taking life is senseless.
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These are all over the Dallas PD's facebook page. maybe 10:1 ratio of supporters of the PD to people glad about this. Imagine being the families of the officers, and people being happy about this. It's a messed up world.

"A society that makes war with its police better make friends with its criminals"
 
RJM62 said:
Unfortunately, I have to agree. Needless to say, I condemn the attacks; but I also believe that it's inevitable that widespread anger and frustration will eventually boil over into violence. I've been saying that for years, including in our own now-defunct Spin Zone. There are a lot of frustrated people out there, of all races, who have little hope and even less to lose: and there's only so much **** they're going to tolerate before they take to the streets.
Click to expand...

The problem is that the group of people who use victimhood as an excuse won't ever climb out of the hole they're in.

My area, a Rust Belt town, is littered with formerly nice communities where the working class left and the welfare class moved in. All of them are completely trashed. None of them are safe for anyone to walk around in. School attendance is in the gutter, never mind graduation rates. And two-parent families are harder to find than unicorns. Until the residents of these communities decide to fix the problems they've created, nothing that anyone else does is going to turn things around.

With respect to the police, yes, I do think that there are cops who don't understand the mission. There are no doubt racist cops. But the profiling that inevitably occurs with respect to minorities is often justifiable based on known behavior. The minority community themselves is responsible for that. Quit turning your communities into hellholes, shooting your own people, dealing drugs, robbing businesses, and start to be responsible members of society. Oh, and when a cop tells you to do something, do exactly as you're told. At least then you have a credible defense.


JKG
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
Today is the first day I woke up and legitimately wondered if I made a mistake having children. It just seems cruel to bring anyone into this world sometimes. I know that that there's just as much good out there as their is evil - we see and experience some of that good every time we climb into our planes, but it seems like evil is dominating.
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There have been many times in history when I'm sure parents have felt that way, probably all parents at some point during the upbringing of their children. One cousin of mine was pregnant with her first child when the World Trade Center got hit. Wars, terrorist attacks, shootings, etc. Of course, this millennium has been rather violent thus far.

We're fortunate in this country that we're far more likely to be killed in a car wreck (or for us especially, plane crash) than we are in some sort of terrorist event. I think of people in the war-torn parts of the world, and they still have children. I think in this country you're still not making a mistake by having children (provided you want children) simply because of the bad things that do occur. It's easy to focus on those, and we do need to work to make them better, but there's a lot more good in the world than bad, even now.
 
Lots of contributing factors but there is one that is glaring to me. It starts at the top with the "us vs them" mentality in our political leadership and tone in the country. I do not mean race, but every aspect which trickles down to race. The rhetoric is that if they do not agree with you they are the enemy...on any subject.

Your opponent does not need to be an enemy.
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
Today is the first day I woke up and legitimately wondered if I made a mistake having children. It just seems cruel to bring anyone into this world sometimes. I know that that there's just as much good out there as their is evil - we see and experience some of that good every time we climb into our planes, but it seems like evil is dominating.

Meanwhile, our choices are between Clinton and Trump to lead us out of this mess, and I see neither of them doing anything beyond further dividing us and exacerbating the situation. Our country is collapsing.

April 12, 1861, first shots of the Civil War.
July 7, 2016, first shots of the second Civil War?
Click to expand...

It's never really stopped. It just ebbs and flows.

The late 19th and early 20th Centuries were times of open rebellion, especially in terms of worker movements. The combined Communist, Socialist, and Workers parties were by far the fastest-growing political segment in America; and the radical IWW, whose constitution called for the overthrow of capitalism, was the fastest-growing labor union. The CIO was pretty radical, as well, before merging with the AFL.

The 1960's were also a time of great turmoil, as anyone who lived through them can tell you. The issues were many, with the Vietnam war and the fight for civil rights probably dominating; but I think the decade as a whole is better defined by its prevailing attitude, which can be summed up in terms like "distrust," "defiance," "counterculture" and "anti-establishment." The different factions may have had different goals, but they were united by their dissatisfaction with and rejection of the status quo, and their willingness to resist, reject, and defy it -- sometimes with riots and violence.

And yet it's hard to say who perpetrated the most violence during the 1960's: those who opposed the "establishment," or those who were defending it. It certainly can be argued that the police (including the National Guard in some cases) perpetrated a lot more violence than protestors and "rioters" ever did, and that many of the riots didn't become riots until excessive police responses to previously peaceful protests provoked and escalated them. This was especially true in the South, where police routinely responded to peaceful civil rights protests with fire hoses and tear gas. And let's not forget Selma in 1965 and Kent State in 1970.

In short, the government's response to the anger and frustration on the parts of people who were tired of being beaten down was to beat them down with a bigger club; and if that didn't work, to try fire hoses, tear gas, or ultimately bullets if need be.

So no, I can't agree with your timeline. The same civil war is still being fought. Only the intensity and the fronts have changed over the years. The main difference in the 1960's was that a variety of people who had grievances with the way things were all decided to protest at once, and even established a coalition of sorts.

Which brings me to this article:

http://www.timesunion.com/news/crim...ngs-of-black-men-stir-fears-anger-8346705.php

Not the article so much as the pictures. Go ahead and flip through them. The demonstration may have been in response to the killings of two black men, but most of the faces in that crowd are not black. Here's a good one:

1024x1024.jpg


People of all races are starting to get sick of this shoot first and ask questions later ****. This is not a police state, a dictatorship, or a third-world banana republic. People shouldn't die because they were selling CDs (or loosie cigarettes), or because they had a tail light out in their cars, or because they did nothing at all.

Rich
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
.....I know that that there's just as much good out there as their is evil.....but it seems like evil is dominating.
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I feel ya. there's more good than evil, but evil dominates in the media. 'good' doesn't sell advertising space. that's why most of these news reports start with "unarmed black man shot dead" instead of "man running from the police, resisting arrest, and/or fighting with police is shot dead". one gets people in an uproar, the other, people say 'yep, sounds about right, nothing to see here'.
 
Cooter143 said:
pursuing right principles is.
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I agree that we should pursue principles. I'm trying to tread carefully here, as I don't want this to devolve into a political debate that would lock this thread. If you want to continue chatting through PM, let me know. Always open to mutually respectful discussion.
 
JGoodish said:
The problem is that the group of people who use victimhood as an excuse won't ever climb out of the hole they're in.

My area, a Rust Belt town, is littered with formerly nice communities where the working class left and the welfare class moved in. All of them are completely trashed. None of them are safe for anyone to walk around in. School attendance is in the gutter, never mind graduation rates. And two-parent families are harder to find than unicorns. Until the residents of these communities decide to fix the problems they've created, nothing that anyone else does is going to turn things around.

With respect to the police, yes, I do think that there are cops who don't understand the mission. There are no doubt racist cops. But the profiling that inevitably occurs with respect to minorities is often justifiable based on known behavior. The minority community themselves is responsible for that. Quit turning your communities into hellholes, shooting your own people, dealing drugs, robbing businesses, and start to be responsible members of society. Oh, and when a cop tells you to do something, do exactly as you're told. At least then you have a credible defense.


JKG
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I don't blame police as a group. I may blame individual cops who off the reservation from time to time; but on the whole, the police do what they're told, they do it in the public interest, they do it for all the right reasons, and they usually do it well.

But my condemnation of attacks against LEO's doesn't blind me to the reality that there are a lot of people in this country who are tired of getting **** on -- and they're not going to put up with it forever. Eventually, they will take to the street in even larger numbers. Hell, our own history shows that. Am I the only one who remembers the 60's?

When that happens, the police, unfortunately, will bear the brunt of the protesters' furor because the police will be the visible faces who symbolize the reasons for that furor. But they won't deserve it. The police are not to blame. The people who make the laws and set the policies, not those who implement them, will be to blame.

Rich
 
eman1200 said:
I feel ya. there's more good than evil, but evil dominates in the media. 'good' doesn't sell advertising space. that's why most of these news reports start with "unarmed black man shot dead" instead of "man running from the police, resisting arrest, and/or fighting with police is shot dead". one gets people in an uproar, the other, people say 'yep, sounds about right, nothing to see here'.
Click to expand...

The media has been one of the worst villains in all of this.
 
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